Petal Pop guide: how to play, rules and tips

1. Press Play. Your first level is in the Front Lawn.
2. Read the level card: it names the goal (clear the trellis, free ladybirds, drop buds, gather a colour, free nests or beat a boss) and a one-line twist.
3. Drag to aim. A guide shows the path, one bounce and where your bud will land.
4. Let go to fling. Groups of three or more of one colour pop, and anything left hanging by nothing drops into the basket.
5. Meet the goal before your buds run out, and before anything crosses the twine at the bottom. Leftover buds burst for a bonus.
6. The goal earns one star; a high score earns two or three. Then on to the next level.

• The drop is where the points are. A bud that falls into the basket scores double a popped one.
• The vine. Every fling that pops nothing fills a pip on the beam. When the last pip fills, the trellis comes down a row.
• The twine. A bud below the twine ends the level. The twine turns pink when you are close.
• Swapping is free, as often as you like.
• Knots hold the top. Twine knots in the top row never pop or fall, and hold up whatever touches them. Clearing the trellis means everything but the knots.
• Colours have shapes. Poppies, Buttercups, Forget-me-nots, Lavenders, Clovers and Marigolds each carry their own mark.
• Bosses creep down every few flings. A pop or burst touching one lands a hit; if it reaches the twine, you lose.

New pieces arrive garden by garden: ladybirds to free, bees that fly off when a bud lands beside them, brambles, stones that only leave by dropping, bursting seed pods, robin's nests, hydrangeas that change colour, growing ivy and frost buds that take two pops.

Cut, don't chip. Find the bud holding a whole cluster up. A small pop at a neck or bridge drops far more than a big pop in the middle.

Swap before every fling. It costs nothing, so fling whichever bud pops.

Bank off the walls. A bounce reaches gaps you cannot hit straight, and scores a little extra.

Mind the vine. With no pop on offer, park the bud next to its own colour to set up the next one.

Use the sun meter. Every pop fills it. When it glows, tap it: your bud becomes a Sunflower, which takes the colour of the biggest group it lands on.

Read the hydrangea. Its corner mark shows its next colour, so aim for that one.

• The garden path. Fifteen levels in each of eight gardens: Front Lawn, Herb Border, Rose Arch, The Allotment, Orchard Wall, Water Garden, Walled Garden and Old Glasshouse. After level 120 it carries on into The Wild, where everything mixes.
• Bosses. Every 15th level: The Garden Snail, The Wasp Queen, The Rose Beetle, The Mole, The Magpie, The Bullfrog, The Old Rat and The Frost Moth, each with its own trick.
• Daily Bloom. The same bed for everyone today, no boosters, just your aim. It keeps growing a row from the top. Your best score goes on the leaderboard.
• Today's gift and Today's jobs. A daily gift, plus the same three jobs for everyone.
• Nectar. Earned from every level you win and every Daily Bloom, and spent at the Flower Stall.